The Super Shuttle picked me up 10 minutes early. A pleasant, stress-free ride to the airport.

Got through security in good time.

Several people smile and say how much they like the flashing Christmas light necklace...one woman even said that I made her day!

Found some good vegetarian food to take on the plane...oh! Time to board!

Almost get to my seat when they make the announcement:

“We need two people to get off the plane...we have another flight in six hours. You’ll be compensated.”

I volunteer.

I get off the plane, crew members thanking me profusely.

“Your gate checked bag will be at your final destination.”

Processing the new boarding pass. Processing the gift card compensation.

Staff on the phone: “No, the door is still open. We had a couple going to Brazil that weren’t checked in for some reason. No, they’re on the flight now. Two people volunteered to take the next flight.”

“Thank you so much sir for helping us out! You’ll get an email by this afternoon about the gift card. Here’s your new boarding pass. You know what? I’m going to buy you lunch too!”

The staff is so grateful.

A couple continues their international travel.

The plane leaves the gate a mere five minutes after scheduled departure time.

I’ll see family later than expected, but now there can be some after Christmas gifts too.

I text my wife: “I’m taking a later flight. Almost midnight before I get in.”

She responds: “You’ll be our Christmas gift!”

I find an outlet to charge my phone, and open my podcast app, content.

May you find all the peace and love you deserve (and you deserve bunches, and bunches!) this holiday season!

I've seen stories from music therapists recently about losing people they have worked with, for many years in some cases.

For those music therapists among you who have never lost a client/ patient, it will happen. It happens to all of us...and there is absolutely nothing that can fully prepare you for when it happens to you.

Yes, you can gain intellectual knowledge about the grieving process and loss...you may have helped countless people work through their own grieving process.

It's different when it happens to you.

I was explaining to a patient recently what it's like from a provider standpoint. He was wondering, since he's had several inpatient stays for addiction, if people dread the sight of him being admitted for treatment again.

I told him for some of us, we do hate to see people that we know are struggling, have such a hard time. Sometimes the path of addiction ends in an early grave, and that hurts, as a provider, because we want the best for our clients/ patients. Otherwise, we would be doing something else.

What I didn't share with him, was a bit of solace I found in the lyrics for "Wash it Away" by Nahko and Medicine for the People:

The road will teach you how to love and let go, it can be lonely, but it's the only thing that we've ever known.

All providers, especially music therapists must find the wisdom in these words. We do what we do because we care. Yes, we have to maintain professional boundaries, but music itself fosters intimacy with those we serve. It's an art for expressing emotions...we get attached to our clients/ patients.

Our professional and our life journey, the road, will teach us how to be invested in the highest good for our clients/ patients, and when our paths part ways due to death, we experience our grief process, and gently, with love and light, we let them go.

We let them go and we move on to the next client/ patient who also needs our unique skills to help them along the road of their life.

When a client/ patient leaves you in this manner, draw from your support community and from the experience of others who've walked the path before.